Today practically everyone is familiar with the energy problems faced by this nation and the world. The cost of petroleum base fuels continues to increase almost daily. In addition, besides the continuing increasing cost of petroleum fuel, consumers have from time to time discovered that petroleum fuel is not available to them at any cost. Nowhere has the scarcity of petroleum fuel been more evident than at gasoline service stations where customers have had to wait in line to purchase gas and/or have been restricted on the quantity of fuel that they may purchase.
This energy situation has led to a policy of conservation on the one hand, and a policy of attempting to develop and utilize alternate sources of energy on the other hand.
It appears that the policy of conservation coupled with an aim to develop alternate sources of energy has at least been partially successful. Yet, in the context of the seriousness of the energy problem, there is still insufficient progress being made in becoming energy independent with respect to petroleum fuels.
In the area of developing alternate sources of energy, alcohol production has gained a lot of attention especially in the area of combining alcohol with petroleum fuel to form gasohol. Today gasohol is commercially available in certain locations, but only on a small scale. Alcohol, under present technology, is expensive to produce and consequently is not clearly economically practical to the extent that the same can displace petroleum fuels. But still alcohol and gasohol offer a promising and encouraging alternate energy source to petroleum fuel. There is a need to develop more efficient means of distilling alcohol so as to minimize the cost, and if significant progress is made in this area, it is believed that alcohol and a resulting alcohol petroleum fuel mix may become more economically feasible and may play a more important role in this nation's energy needs.